


Bullriding  (Two vignettes about Jack)

by Gilli_ann



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 13:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9823337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilli_ann/pseuds/Gilli_ann
Summary: Bullriding is dangerous. Sometimes fate plays a part in the outcome. Sometimes in life there are risks that are even greater.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters belong to Annie Proulx and Focus Features.

**Accidentally**

Jack was getting properly settled on his bull, so he missed seeing what actually happened. But he sure heard the shouts, saw the frantic activity – hectic clowns, the wild bull, men rushin’ to the aid of a limp body lying motionless on the ground. 

There was a delay before the unconscious rider was carried off, making way for Jack. His bull was antsy bordering on vicious and he himself not sufficiently in the game. Thrown after just a few seconds, for once he didn’t much care - shaken by the accident, wondering how bad it would prove to be. 

Didn’t know the man well, but he’d seen him round the circuit, exchanged words now and then. Nice enough guy. The quiet sort. 

When the news came, he felt empty and cold. The rodeoing seemed pointless all of a sudden. Here he was, injured several times, risking his life for pittances, proving himself to a bastard who’d never once seen him ride and wasn’t ever likely to, anyhow. 

This was the last straw. Enough was enough. He should just get out while he still could walk. And breathe. 

While he was packing up, pondering his meager options, a cowboy came by, passing the hat around, funeral contributions. 

Jack was nearly down to his last dimes, hardly had enough cash to keep the truck on the road. He was ashamed of how little he donated. That’s how come, when word spread that next time they’d be riding in honor of the deceased rider, he decided to stay on for one more. 

Yeah, he could always ride a final time, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. But that was it. He was adamant, his mind made up. No more, no way. The next one, in Childress, would be his very last rodeo. 

**Affordable risk**

Every time his bull hurtled out of the chute Jack had risked his life. He'd done so willingly, though, despite having seen up close more than once how being stomped on could maim a body. The sheer exhilarating, terrifying rush of those few seconds when everything was left to fate and chance and his own combined skill and luck made it worthwhile. His life and limbs up against a bull-rider’s fame, some dollars and a buckle, yeah, that was an acceptable risk. 

But when it later came to making the single biggest bet of his life in that boundless game of fortune where the prize was a sweet life with Ennis, Jack hesitated, doubted, and held back. He thought it through, over and again, weighing the odds, estimating the outcome. 

To present Ennis with an ultimatum: All, or nothing at all? 

A “yes” would gain Jack his life’s desire… 

Yet the stakes were dauntingly high. A final “no” would stomp his love into the dust, destroy his every hope. A bull might have trampled his body, but Ennis held the power to crush his very heart and soul. 

Jack found he just wasn’t _that_ much of a gambler. 


End file.
